Life at the top in Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS — Saturday night, early last month in the Playboy Club at the Palms Casino Resort: Hugh Hefner enters the room to a cacophonous reaction among the crowd. A crush of camera crews, press, well-wishers, celebrities, high rollers and beautiful young ladies for Mr. Hefner’s 82nd birthday.

The lion in winter is still roaring, accompanied by his girlfriends Holly Madison, Bridget Marquardt and Kendra Wilkinson (stars of the hit E! series “Girls Next Door”), a warren of Playmates and Playmate of the Year Sara Underwood.

Hugh Hefner has been famous longer than most of us have been alive. Playboy and Mr. Hefner entered our national consciousness in 1953, three years before Elvis, long before the Beatles conquered America. I have often called Mr. Hefner the first Beatle, a man who altered the way America views sexuality.

A stalwart champion of civil rights, the First Amendment and, yes, women’s rights, Mr. Hefner and Playboy are in Vegas to celebrate the success of the first Playboy Club to open in decades and, as a part of Las Vegas’ incendiary celebrity destination, the Palms.

Earlier, in the Hugh Hefner Sky Villa, a two-story penthouse extravaganza overlooking the Strip with a rotating round bed in the master suite and a cavernous atrium connecting the living room to its own swimming pool on the balcony, Mr. Hefner offered this comment on the Playboy Club at the Palms:

“It’s a natural extension of where Playboy is going, both with this club and the new Playboy Mansion Casino, set to open in Macau next year, and the Palms is at the center of it. Where else would the Playboy Club be but at the most cutting-edge venue in Vegas?”

Palms owner George Maloof echoes Mr. Hefner: “The biggest part for the Palms is just being associated with the Playboy brand. It has been wildly successful.”

The Playboy Club stands at the top of the Palms’ Fantasy Tower. Elegant and stylish, with Playboy Bunnys dealing blackjack and spinning roulette, it attracts high rollers and an upscale, capacity crowd. The atmosphere is electric, the gaming tables are raging, and the Bunnys lend a charged air. The throbbing nightclub, Moon, sits above, connected to the club by escalators. Mr. Hefner and his entourage party into the night in both clubs before jetting back to the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles at 2 a.m.

In a town where a venue or hotel is cutting-edge for five minutes, the Palms has been going at it continually for more than seven years. It has reshaped the way Las Vegas is done. A regular hangout for celebrities from Leonardo DiCaprio to George Clooney to Britney Spears, it is the destination of choice in Vegas for many of the upscale glitterati from both coasts and around the world.

The Palms is just off the Strip, part of what makes it a trend-defining world of its own. Our Grand Suite in the Fantasy Tower is a luxurious retreat with large spaces for the living room, bedroom and bath. One of the Palms’ newest additions is a third tower, Palms Place, with 56 floors of luxury condominiums rented out as hotel rooms and designed for discriminating customers who want luxury just steps away from the action.

Dinner our first night at the Palms is in Little Buddha, voted the best sushi bar in Vegas two years running. The Las Vegas branch of the original world-famous Buddha Bar in Paris, Little Buddha lives up to its reputation with exotic decor and atmosphere, amazing sushi and an excellent selection of cold sakes.

The next day, we have a couples’ massage at the Drift Spa in Palms Place, part of the full-service accommodations in this separate oasis within the resort. We spend the afternoon lounging around the hotel’s two acres of pools, bars, bungalows and bodies, and a party unto itself.

Dinner at the Michelin-starred Alize on the 56th floor of the original Palms Tower offers stunning views of the Strip and exquisite cuisine from master chef Andre Rochet. The menu includes Serranopeppers stuffed with lump crabmeat; classic tender and flaky Dover sole; and veal medallions with crispy sweetbreads, each perfectly prepared. Our three-hour feast is worthy of the view.

After dinner, we go to the Playboy Club for a pajama party with Miss Underwood, the Playmate of the Year, and her fellow Playmates. The gods of roulette smile down upon us, and we take our winnings and while away the evening with champagne.

THE PALAZZO

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